A CRJ-900 Endeavor Air crashed during landing in Toronto on Monday. Many questions remain about the exact cause of the crash. The regional jet was lying on its side, without wings, in pictures and videos taken by the passengers who miraculously survived.
Note: If you are wondering what the difference is between Delta and Endeavor – the latter is an independent but fully owned company that operates regional airline flights on behalf of the former. Legacy Airlines outsources its regional airline flights.
The video has now been released and provides a great deal more context as to why the accident happened. It also gives some clues about the cause. While it is not “graphic”, it is a violent accident to watch.
The flight data recorder will tell an interesting story. As they approached the landing point, there didn’t seem to be much flare (in layman’s terms: when you raise the nose of the plane higher to soften a touchdown). Some people have said that the landing gear collapsed. This is true, but the plane bounced back upon touchdown. This indicates that the gear collapsed because the landing was hard and not due to any mechanical defect.
The right-wing strikes and shears off, which causes the plane to start rolling over. It was on its back that it came to rest. The fact that all survived with only 18 injuries is a testament to the strength of the CRJ. I don’t have the exact Vref, (calculated final approach landing speed), but they likely flew at 130 knots when they landed, without a flare to reduce speed. This is a lot of energy that can be lost in a crash.
What happened? The NTSB will be looking into this. The causes could be anything from pilot error in a wide range of situations to an unforeseen mechanical problem that only appeared when the aircraft was supposed to be flared. The wind has been mentioned by many, but it will still likely be categorized as pilot error. You may have read NTSB reports and know that there are few things that pilots can use to justify a crash. If wind shear occurs, a go-around must be performed immediately. In this case, no go-around attempt was made.
But we’ll have to wait and see. It could be something we never thought of, but the NTSB is a magician when it comes down to this. They’ll be able to handle this case with ease, given the amount of data that they have.